The US flies hundreds of ISR missions every year to collect communications between the target country’s command-and-control centers and radar and weapons systems. The initial deployment of the Carl Vinson strike force was to the South China Sea. Are these probes and the deployment a violation of the UN Charter?

Japan and South Korea are working with the US to ensure all preparatory defensive measures are up to par and have sharpened their coordination in all defensive matters. Both countries have also pledged support for peace and diplomatic solutions to the Korean Peninsula crisis.

US President Donald Trump has been advocating striking North Korea’s nuclear facilities since taking office in January. However, he will be restrained from delivering such an order for both empirical and strategic reasons. And China knows too well that it won’t happen.

Some US and foreign media have used the information to convince the Trump administration that China presents an imminent threat to US interests in the South China Sea. But the burgeoning drumbeat for the US to confront China should be considered with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Contrary to the dominant views that picture the China-Russia strategic partnership as shaky and unsustainable, the two countries have created strong institutional foundations, and only minor steps are necessary for a formal and functioning military alliance to materialize.

The negative news and the predictions of China’s collapse were “old hat.” As time passed, these accounts were discredited. So, the Western media had to reset. One tack is to push China and Trump’s America into conflict.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half-brother Kim Jong Nam was apparently assassinated at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport by female assassins. This presents a chance for the international community to work together to prevent transnational assassinations and murders.

Analysts trying to parse US policy in the Trump era regarding the South China Sea must be prepared for stark contradictions and intellectual whiplash. It is too early to draw conclusions regarding US-China relations in the South China Sea or in general.

In January 2017 during the 20th China-Philippines Foreign Ministry Consultation, the two countries confirmed that they would complete the Code of Conduct framework relating to the South China Sea in the first half of 2017.